The sun went down, and still the colonel lingered.

The next morning he rode away with his dispatches, but on his return he paused at the White House, the home of Mrs.Custis, and then and there plighted his troth with the charming widow.

The wooing was brief and decisive, and the successful lover departed for the camp, to feel more keenly than ever the delays of the British officers and the shortcomings of the colonial government.

As soon as Fort Duquesne had fallen he hurried home, resigned his commission in the last week of December, and was married on January 6, 1759.

It was a brilliant wedding party which assembled on that winter day in the little church near the White House.